Monday Morning Message with Jason Beem for May 12, 2025

Jason discusses Mother's Day, his mom, and racing. 

A good Monday morning to you all! I hope everyone had a good weekend and especially a good Mother’s Day. I know Mother’s Day can be a tough one for many people, so regardless of whether or not your mother is here in body or spirit, I hope you had some good memories during the day. 

For a lot of people, it was their mothers who introduced them to racing or helped facilitate their love of the sport. For me, it was my dad. Racing was 100% a thing between him and me. My mom has only gone to the track when she’s gone with me or to come see me while I’m announcing. 

Back in the day, she worked at a poker room that was only a couple of miles from old Longacres in Renton, Washington, and back then the overlap between horseplayers and poker players was very extreme. You’d walk into that poker room on any given night, and there’d be a dozen guys with racing forms in their hands while they played cards. So she has always been around horseplayers, including in her own house with Dad and me. 

It’s interesting though because a lot of my favorite memories in horse racing actually involve my mother. Not because she was there physically or because she loves the sport, but more so because of her support of me and my love of the game. Every time I’ve been fortunate enough to get a job in racing, the first person I tell is my mom. 

I remember getting the call from River Downs in 2006, my first announcing job. I screamed at the top of my lungs in my kitchen after I hung up with them. I then composed myself and drove down to her place of business, walked into her office, and shared the good news that I’d be moving to Cincinnati in a month to call races. She looked shocked and then pulled out a map to see where exactly Cincinnati was. I told her it was as close to Kentucky racing as I could get without being in Kentucky! 

Three seasons later, it was her that I called when I needed to come home because my panic attacks and depression issues had gotten so bad that I couldn’t call a race without pausing to choke back tears. She was on the first flight out and drove with me back across the country to Seattle. I always call her first with the good news because she was there with a front seat view for all the bad times. Good time or bad, she always showed her loyalty and support and love. She even said she was proud of me when I was the furthest thing from being proud of myself. Unconditional love from her. Always. 

She’s been out here to Tampa Bay Downs a couple of times since I moved here, and she loves it. She’ll usually walk around the building for a while when I’m doing my prep work. Then she’ll come up to the booth and read a book and chat with me between races. She never bets and really doesn’t even watch many of the races. But it's a good time we get to share together, and I think she just likes to watch me enjoy my work. She even called me the other day to ask about the Kentucky Derby (G1) and talk about the race.

Of course I miss my dad, and I’ve always been sad that he and I never have gotten to talk about racing since I’ve gotten involved in it. But I love that my mom every once in a while does check in on the game and talk with me about it. She truly is the best mom, and any time a big race rolls around, before the last few horses go into the gate, I try and think about her and my dad and just be thankful for that moment and all the ones that came before it. 

Happy Mother’s Day to my mom and all the moms out there.